


A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes

by bughead2017



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 16:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18695149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bughead2017/pseuds/bughead2017
Summary: The clock struck midnight, but Betty still had both slippers. Her station wagon never turned into a pumpkin, her dog never turned into a stagecoach, and her red-headed prince never came for her.





	A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes

The clock struck midnight, but Betty still had both slippers. Her station wagon never turned into a pumpkin, her dog never turned into a stagecoach, and her red-headed prince never came for her. 

Snow fell steadily on the front porch steps around her, flakes melting on her dress and blending with her tear drops. Dried streaks of mascara lined her rosy cheeks as she stared at the street, waiting for that hand-me-down truck to roll to a stop against the curb. 

The smell of her lavender perfume had blown away with the wind hours ago, along with her last ounce of hope that he would show up. Yet, she still sat on the pavement in wait like all the times before. 

The porch light clicked on behind her with the sound of the screen door hissing, and she knew it was her mother. For the past four hours, Betty felt the sadness from Alice’s eyes burning a hole in the back of her head as she watched her through the glass. 

A fleece blanket wrapped around Betty’s shivering shoulders, but as much as she wanted to bask in the warmth of the soft throw, she shrugged it off. 

“I’m not cold, Mom.”

Alice sighed, cursing the stubbornness of her youngest child. It was the same stubbornness she encompassed when she was Betty’s age. 

“You’re going to turn into a popsicle if you stay out here any longer.”

Betty turned to Alice, the sparkle in her hazel orbs now replaced with and ocean full of salty tears, “He’s not coming, is he?”

Alice gathered Betty’s face into her manicured hands, wiping away the streaks of mascara from her cheeks. Alice’s silence was all that Betty needed and the sobs she had been holding in escaped from her, shaking her body violently like a shirt in a hurricane. 

“He’s with Veronica,” Betty sniffled into her mother’s chest as Alice wrapped the folded up blanket around the both of them, her own body shivering from the cold, “He was last time,”

Betty pulled away from Alice, standing up in a fit of rage. She began to pace back and forth on the sidewalk, asking herself the same question over and over.

“How could I have been so stupid to fall for this again?”

Alice’s heart broke at the sound of her daughter blaming herself for Archie’s stupid decisions. It wasn’t Betty’s fault that an asshole chose someone else over her. He only agreed to spend time with Betty when he knew Veronica wasn’t available. 

“It’s not your fault, sweetheart,” Alice stood, grabbing Betty’s shoulders as Betty’s pacing became more hysterical, “He decided to skip out on spending time with an amazing girl. He decided to hurt his best friend. He made those decisions, not you,”

Betty closed her eyes for a second, in an attempt to calm her racing heart as she listened to her mother’s words. Alice was right, but it was so hard for Betty to believe that she didn’t do something wrong. Why was she always the second choice? When was she ever going to be good enough?

She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand and pulled her cardigan tighter around her, the snow still falling in heaps around her. 

“I’ll be inside in a minute, Mom. I just need a second to myself,”

Alice sighed and pecked Betty’s temple, whispering that she’d leave the leave the light on for her when she was ready to come in. Betty sat there for awhile, tracing patterns in the snow with her shivering fingers as more time passed. 

Just a few more minutes, she thought, Maybe he just got stranded in the snow.

She knew better than that, though. She would bet all her college savings that he was fast asleep next to Veronica with not a care in the world and here she was, out in the cold in wait.

Betty sniffled and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweater, mascara staining the blush colored fabric. She brushed her curls behind her ears and stood, wrapping the blanket tighter around her shivering figure. 

As she turned to walk into her house, she gasped at the sound of footsteps, but she was disappointed to see they weren’t Archie’s. The figure in the dimness of the streetlight was thin to be him. Her chin trembled and she choked on another sob, cursing herself once more. 

She felt the warmth of the door handle as it coursed through her arm, her body thanking her silently. As she closed the door shut behind her, she leant against it for a moment as she basked in the heat, catching her breath through her weeping. She kicked off her shoes and slipped from her sweater, now only her lilac dress hugging her close. 

She fell into the couch and flipped on the TV, cruising through the channels until she found her favorite late night reruns - Law and Order: SVU. It was her and her mom’s favorite thing to do together; watching Olivia Benson put criminals in prison really took their stress away. 

Betty hadn’t realized how tired she was as she started to drift off. She leant her head on the arm of the couch and curled up under her blanket, her eyes fluttering closed. Just as she began to snore quietly, a knock at the door startled her awake. 

She jolted up and held her chest to calm her heart. She looked at the clock on the wall and wondered who else would be awake this time of night. She threw the blanket onto the recliner and trudged over to the door. She didn’t expect who was standing behind it.

“Juggie?”

His habitually confined raven curls now hung loose on his head and he was dressed in a button-up navy shirt, the top two buttons revealing a few inches of his tanned chest. A soft grin stretched across his jaw and a bouquet of sunflowers were gripped between his fingers.

“Hey, Betts,”

Despite desperately trying to hold a calm manner, his shaking hands proved otherwise as he held out the flowers to her. 

“Your mom called me. She said you could use a prince.”


End file.
